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Slipspace
Slipspace, also known as 'Slipstream Space' formally, and known colloquially as 'Hyperspace' and 'FTL', is the method through which spacecraft are able to accelerate to faster than light speeds. Technically speaking though, Slipspace does not accelerate to faster than light speeds, instead simply sidestepping the light speed barrier. It comprises eleven superspatial dimensions that exist on a plane that cannot be detected without specialized equipment and cannot be accessed without specialized drives. Entering Slipspace is referred to as either 'tunneling', 'slipping', or 'jumping'. Description & History Slipspace has long been one of the feasible ways for spacecraft to travel through space in a practical and efficient way. Prior to discovery of Slispace, civilizations would be locked to sublight speeds, which meant that voyages were long, slow, and many generations of space travellers would live their lives without seeing their destination. A ship that wanted to travel from one planet to another would take centuries to reach their target. Slipspace changes all of this. The nature of the space itself follows a completely different law of physics that allows a shortcut to be taken, similar to that of a wormhole. Within Slipspace, an object's mass is able to be altered in such a way that it can be accelerated to faster than light speeds without breaking the light speed barrier. The space itself appears completely black. The visiual spectrum does not show any light at all. It's because of this that has strengthened the belief that light itself behaves differently in Slipspace, or rather at which the speed that it propogates. It is unknown what the first civilization to uncover the mysteries of Slipspace was, as this information was lost to the vastness of time. However, this discovery would have likely been the most important scientific achievement in that species' history. The breaking of the light speed barrier marks the point in time where a species can propogate to another solar system, thus making their odds of extermination exponentially that much lower. Slipspace itself was likely to have been created at the beginning of the universe, or possibly even before. With the inclusion of Alternate Universes in play, the origins of such a space are impossible to gauge from any modern standpoint. One of the earliest known races to explore the vastness of Slipspace were the Forerunners. However, it is clear though that they did not create Slipspace. It is strongly likely that like many other races after them, they discovered Slipspace and utilized it for their own means. The Forerunners had an incredibly high understanding of Slipspace, to the point where they were knowledgeable of other dimensions that modern civilizations have not been able to access or detect yet. Aside from the Forerunners, the Covenant were also able to utilize Slipspace travel, which was instrumental in them formulating their empire. The San 'Shyuum were one of the first races to utilize such a drive, but after conquering other races, the Prophets mandated that they were to use the same devices. The Covenant though did not develop or discover Slipspace. The collective itself was not aware of how to create the devices. All Covenant technology relating to Slipspace was reappropriated from Forerunner devices that were left forgotten after their disappearance. Even to this day, no Covenant scientist has ever produced a legitimate Slipspace Drive. From the Human perspective, the big change came in 2290 when Doctors Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa created their Slipspace drive, which enabled Humanity to leave Earth and settle the stars. This achievement was made not long after the failure of Matthew Mobius' Lunar Jumpgate, which led some people to mistrust any new devices, but after the scientists themselves tested the Drive, Humanity finally saw a way out. Mechanics The means through which a ship enters Slipspace is difficult to explain to those that are not familiar with the process, but the use of micro-black holes to squeeze ships into the never-never land is an integral part of the process. From a quantum physics standpoint, the black holes rip apart spacetime which reveal a portal in which ships can make the transition. For Human slipspace drives, this is a resonance frequency combined with particle accelerators. The mathematical formula is as follows. a^'t=d√dtu∆=d*d(φat)≅0=a(t) Simply put, this formula assumes that two particles can exist at two given spaces at the same time, but that despite the quantum entanglement, there is a small passage of time that exists between them, which is called Galilean Relativity. Technically speaking, Slipspace travel is correctly in line with the flow of time between the observer and the traveller. This means that the clocks that are within the ship and outside of a tear are ticking at the exact same rate, or rather, almost exactly the same rate. Galilean Relativity suggests that there is a miniscule passage of time that occurs when distance, as represented by the variable 'd', is stretched, or is added onto, meaning that the longer the journey, the more likely there is to be some minor time dialation. However, mass, as represented by the delta, is also a factor. Ships of smaller mass are likely to be affected at a lower rate than those of higher mass, which has led to some organized military attacks to be knocked off balance due to the fact that different vessels of different tonnage were arriving at staging areas at different times. To combat Galilean Relativity, tacticians stagger entry into Slipspace in order to ensure that ships of different tonnage arrive at the same time when the equation above is taken into account. Slower ships are sent ahead first, and faster ships follow suit. This gives the impression that ships arrive in formation at the exact same time. However, Galilean Relativity does not account for 'Slip Drift', which is a sort of 'jitter', which means that a ship may appear not in an exact spot, but rather in a sphere of where it is likely to end up. Category:Lore Category:Technology